3rd Energy Transition Forum 2022 Distinguished Confirmed Speakers Include

Karl Pettersen was appointed Chief Sustainability Officer for the Americas in 2020, with the mandate of consolidating Société Générale’s regional ESG initiatives and fostering a client-centric and pragmatic sustainability conversation for the Americas. Karl’s remit includes building on the bank’s deep relationships to accompany clients in their ESG decision-making, developing the bank’s sustainable finance and sustainable banking infrastructure across the Americas value chain, and engaging in continuous market outreach and communications on all aspects of ESG. 

In this capacity, Karl advises clients and business lines of the bank in all matters related to credit ratings, including optimizing communications with rating agencies, fine-tuning clients’ financial policies, and developing analytical tools to facilitate ratings positioning. Karl acts as long-standing and exclusive advisor to a number of the bank’s large corporate clients, and his team also covers core business areas such as leveraged finance and project finance. 

Prior to Société Générale, Karl worked at UBS in London from 2005 to 2007, as Head of Emerging Markets Ratings Advisory, where he advised primarily Russian and CIS clients on obtaining and optimizing credit ratings, and on improving their financial policies and capital structures. Karl also supervised ratings advisory for European leveraged finance at UBS. 

From 2000 to 2005, Karl worked at Moody’s in London, where he held a variety of roles, including senior analyst on various portfolios, from telecoms to manufacturing to emerging markets. In his last role at Moody’s, Karl was Vice President – Standards & Criteria, where he was in charge of formulating, writing, and publishing Moody’s corporate finance rating methodologies, as well as certain aspects of credit policy. 

Karl holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale University.